Lutherna View of Church and State

JUSTIFICATION

2006-2007

LESSON FIVE

I. True and Proper Point at Issue (p. 473)

A. Point confused in 3 principal ways. (p.474)

1. Argument directed at matter of outward discipline.

2. Argument concerns itself with initial stages of conversion which precede faith or are concurrent with it. (e.g. contrition)

3. Or, the argument hinges on the matter of renewal.

B. Must not allow debate to get beyond the bounds of the subject.

C. Point at issue is, when mind is terrified by sin and sense of God’s wrath:

1. What is that entity on account of which the sinner, condemned before His judgment, obtains remission of sins, is absolved from sentence of condemnation and is received into eternal life?

2. What is the instrument or means by which the promise of the Gospel is received, laid hold upon and applied?

D. Conversion: events that take place in:

1. Discipline of the Law.

2. Contrition (its object is a sense of sin, wrath, judgment of God and condemnation)

3. Change of mind and will.

4. Faith.

5. New obedience, etc.

E. The question is: What is the instrument that lays hold on the promise of the Gospel of the remission of sins for the sake of Christ?

II. The vocabulary of Justification (p. 475)

A. Chemnitz: “We ought to love and magnify the linguistic description of the terms used in the chief loci of the heavenly doctrine.” (p. 475)

1. If lose the terminology, lose the concept.

2. When correct grammatical meaning of the words in locus restored, purity of doctrine also restored.

B. Contempt (or ignorance) of correct terminology damages doctrine.

1. Augustine, deceived by similarity of “to sanctify” and “to justify” shifted emphasis towards sanctification.

2. Misuse created problem by even a slight twisting of words in the heavenly doctrine.

3. Scholastics began to describe justification as the moving from state of unrighteousness to state of righteousness.

III. “To justify” (p. 476)

A. How word used in common, ordinary speech. (p. 476)

1. Papists argued word meant “to make righteous” by giving or infusing of new qualities.

2. “Dikaioō” in common Greek language is a forensic or declarative word with 2 meanings.

a. To evaluate or pronounce someone to be righteous in a way that those who hold a public office make a pronouncement.

b. To inflict punishment, not in way private people do, but as when a person is punished by a legal decision after a case has been judged.

c. Cites Plutarch, Herodotus, Appian, Josephus, Suidas, Cicero.

3. Among Greeks, this was simply a forensic or legal term.

B. Use by apostles. (p. 477)

1. LXX used dikaioō (“to justify”: an active voice means to declare righteous; to justify as a judicial act) to translate Hebrew concept of which we are speaking.

2. Not in total agreement with common usage - differences:

a. Scripture uses term for “to pronounce righteous” almost always in reference to people.

b. Greeks used it also for legal cases or matters of business.

c. To Hebrew, term “to justify” refers to one who has been absolved, to defend him and to adorn him with rewards.

d. The Greeks used term also in the negative sense, with reference to condemnation or punishment (sense not used in Scripture).

3. In common Greek, never used with meaning of infusing righteousness as something positive and inherent.

4. Scholastics judged the word (Latin) “iustificare” by its composition, like vivificare (to make alive) etc., involving the idea of expelling one quality and putting in another.

a. Cicero, et al, know nothing of this usage.

b. At time of Augustine, term used in keeping with practice of Scripture.

C. Words used in explaining the doctrine of the church are of 3 kinds. (p. 477)

1. Some are taken from the common usage of the language.

2. Some are peculiar or proper to Holy Scripture.

3. Some are taken into use for certain reasons in a special meaning (e.g. “person” or “sacrament”)

D. “Justify” (p. 477)

1. Has some relationship to the usage of common Greek language.

2. Nevertheless, is a term peculiar to sacred language.

3. Therefore, must look at examples of meaning the word has in other passages, unrelated to doctrine of justification.

4. Hebrew used was as a forensic term; which can be proved in 2 ways.

a. Word clearly used in reference to courts and legal actions.

(1) 2Sa 15:4: “justice” (“justify them”)

(2) Dt 25:1: “acquitting” (“justifying”)

b. Antithesis shows it clearly.

(1) Dt 25:1: (see above) - “justifying” vs. “condemning”.

(2) Pr 17:15.

5. Word therefore has 3 aspects. (p. 478)

a. To absolve the person accused and brought to judgment.

b. To account, pronounce, receive, and accept a person as righteous or innocent (used without distinction as to whether cause is a just or unjust one)

c. Term also includes fact that Scripture attributes to those justified the praise, testimony, and rewards owed to the righteous and innocent, and treats them not as guilty or even as suspects, but as righteous and innocent.

6. As is case in all languages, words are transferred from the specific to the general.

a. Thus “justify” sometimes used to approve, testify to, acknowledge, etc. and celebrate the fact the someone is righteous.

b. Lk 10:29.

c. Lk 16:15

7. Forensic definition does not support definition established by papists.

a. Papists used Da 12:3 (“turn many to righteousness” - Latin “justify many”).

(1) But wise can not pour into people new qualities of righteousness - can only instruct or show the way to.

(2) What this righteousness is must be learned from the Gospel.

b. God uses as His means the ministration of the Word.

(1) 2Co 5:18.

(2) 1Ti 4:16.

c. Papists also used 1 Co 6:11 (sanctified placed before justified) (p. 478).

(1) Antithesis declares Paul’s meaning.

(2) “washing” opposed to “filth”.

(3) “sanctified” opposed by “pollution or contamination”.

(4) “justified” opposed by “guilt”. (v10)

d. Rev 22:11 - a unique passage

(1) i.e. There is always need for absolution or remission of sins for the regenerate.

(2) Sense of passage seems to be that:

(a) just as obstinate are not improved through the ministration of the Word, but are hardened by iniquity.

(b) so the righteous increase and progress in holiness and righteousness of new obedience through hearing the Word.

8. Therefore, “justify” means one thing when Scripture is speaking of divine commandments, and another thing when speaking of Gospel’s gracious promises. (p.479)

a. Greeks often expressed different meanings by the use of a particular form of a word.

b. Hebrew made distinction as to diversity of meanings by changes in the conjugation.

(1) Osiander (position condemned by Art. III of FC).

(a) 1st conjugation - verbs refer to having a certain quality.

(b) 2nd conjugation - they use this quality.

(d) contended in the 1st would be “to be righteous” and in 3rd would be “to make righteous”.

(2) Refuted by examples from Scripture.

(3) M.C. states that conjugations more usefully applied in order to show the difference when “justify” refers to the Law and when refers to the Gospel.

(a) 1st conjugation refers to being righteous in a positive sense.

(b) Examples: Job 13:18; 34:5.

(d) In 2d conjugation, refers to arrogating righteousness to oneself or attributing it to another (e.g. Job 32:2).

(e) In 3d, it has a forensic or legal connotation.

(f) In 4th, it refers to pleading in court. (used once in Ge 44:16)

IV. Application to Article of Justification (p. 480)

A. Paul everywhere describes article of justification as a judicial process wherein conscience of sinner, accused before tribunal of God by the Law, convicted, and subject to sentence of eternal damnation, flees to the throne of grace and is restored, absolved and freed from sentence and received to eternal life for sake of the obedience and intercession of the Son of God, our Mediator, which is laid hold of and made one’s own through faith.

B. Ro 3: 19,20.

C. Ro 5:10,16,19.

D. Ro 8:1,2,33,34.

E. Ro 10:3.

F. Paul used word in forensic or legal sense when dealing with article of justification.

G. Other apostles use synonymous terms, e.g. “to save”, “to remit sins”, etc.

H. Use of legal term shows that justification of the sinner is not some insignificant or perfunctory thing.

I. Act of Justification (Ro 3). (p. 481)

1. Conscience of sinner is through the Law placed before judgment tribunal of God, accused, convicted and condemned, so that it is afflicted and pressed down by terrifying sense of the wrath of God.

2. Contrite heart anxiously seeks whether and how it can be freed from the comprehensive sentence of condemnation.

3. Therefore, God (who is rich in mercy: Eph 2:4) has had mercy upon us and has set forth a propiation through faith in the blood of Christ, and those who flee as suppliants to throne of grace He absolves from the sentence, and by imputation of righteousness of His Son, which they grasp in faith, He pronounces them to be heirs of eternal life.

J. Other synonymous terms used.

1. Ro 4:3,5.

2. Ro 4:7,8.

3. Ro 5:10 - “reconciled”.

4. Tit 3:5-7 - justify, save, become heirs.

5. Peter and John do not use the word “justification”.

a. Not a disapproval of Paul’s terminology.

b. Reach those disturbed by word due to not being accustomed to Hebrew expressions.

c. Also to respond to some who were skillfully distorting it.

d. Jn 3:16-18.

e. Jn 5:24.

f. 1Jn 3:14.

g. 1Jn 1:7(-9).

h. Ac 2:38.

i. Ac 10:43.

6. Jesus uses “loosing” and “binding” sins - judicial terms.

a. Mt 16:19.

b. Mt 18:18.

K. “Righteousness of God”. (p. 484)

1. God examines all our actions according to the norm of the righteousness which is in Him - revealed in the Law.

2. Ro 1:17.

3. In passages dealing with which we are dealing, term not “dikaiōsis” (used in 5:18 in opposition to condemnation: the act which declares a right or just person as such; justification; but as an act and not as the essence or character of justice which is dikaiōsynē) but rather “dikaiōsynē” (righteousness which belongs to God or God-like righteousness).

4. In LXX, where Hebrew had “mercy” was rendered as “dikaiōsynē” (e.g. Ge 19:19; 20:13; 21:23 and 32:10)

5. Other passages, not appropriate to render concept with “mercy”.

a. 1Co 1:30.

b. 2Co 5:21.

c. In these, term “the righteousness of God” means the righteousness acceptable before God unto life eternal, and this is the obedience of our Mediator, which God imputes to believers for righteousness if they lay hold on it by faith.

d. Php 3:9.

e. Is in believers by imputation, but in formal sense and positively it is in Christ the Mediator.